F-16 Sales to Pakistan: The AI Risk You Can’t Ignore

A fighter jet sale isn’t just a foreign policy headline. It’s a long-term data relationship—spare parts, software patches, training pipelines, mission planning tools, and the telemetry that keeps an aircraft combat-ready. When Washington supports Pakistan’s F-16 fleet, it’s not only underwriting airpower. It’s also shaping (or surrendering) influence over the digital backbone that modern air forces run on.

Sajjan M. Gohel’s argument about Washington’s “risky bet” is basically this: the idea that F-16 sustainment buys the United States leverage over Pakistan’s military behavior has failed repeatedly. And the risk is rising as Pakistan’s defense ecosystem becomes more intertwined with Chinese equipment, financing, and doctrine.

Here’s the twist that matters for this AI in Defense & National Security series: the real leverage in 2025 isn’t only the airframe. It’s AI-enabled maintenance, AI-assisted intelligence, and software-defined operations. If policy treats the F-16 as a bargaining chip while ignoring AI and data exposure, the U.S. ends up paying for access it doesn’t actually control.

The core problem: F-16 support is a bet on “behavior change”

The key point is straightforward: F-16 upgrades and sustainment haven’t moderated Pakistan’s strategic behavior. Over decades, Islamabad has tended to interpret continued U.S. support as validation—especially when its security establishment prioritizes competition with India, maintains strong military influence in politics, and hedges on Afghanistan-related security issues.

That creates a predictable cycle:

• A security crisis spikes U.S. interest in cooperation.
• Sustainment or upgrades are used to keep channels open.
• Pakistan’s military gets capability and prestige.
• Washington expects restraint in return.
• The restraint is partial, temporary, or shows up in places that don’t match U.S. priorities.

The reality? A platform-centric approach can’t substitute for a strategy. And the “platform” is now inseparable from AI-enabled systems that determine readiness, targeting, and operational tempo.

Why this matters more in 2025 than in 2015

The F-16 era used to be about jets, pilots, and munitions. Now it’s also about:

• Predictive maintenance models trained on fleet-wide telemetry
• Mission planning that fuses ISR feeds, threat libraries, and electronic order of battle
• Software-defined avionics with frequent update cycles
• Data pipelines that touch base networks, contractors, and third-party logistics

So when Washington “supports F-16 capability,” it’s also influencing (and exposing) the data and software environment around that capability.

Pakistan’s procurement reality: mixed fleets create mixed incentives

The key point: Pakistan’s growing reliance on Chinese defense equipment changes the risk calculus for any U.S. sustainment package.

Pakistan’s airpower mix has increasingly featured Chinese-origin platforms and subsystems—alongside legacy U.S. aircraft like the F-16. Mixed fleets can be operationally smart (diversity, resilience, cost control), but they also create integration pressure:

• Shared comms and datalinks (or gateways)
• Shared training and tactics development
• Shared depot-level maintenance ecosystems
• Shared ISR and air defense picture

If you’re thinking about AI, integration pressure is exactly where risk concentrates. AI thrives on connecting sensors to decisions. That means countries modernizing their air forces often push toward data fusion across platforms. And once that’s the direction of travel, the question isn’t “Will systems touch?” It’s “Where are the seams, and who audits them?”

The overlooked risk: sustainment is an information supply chain

Most people hear “sustainment” and think spare engines. I think:

• Vendor access
• Diagnostic data
• Toolchains and updates
• Maintenance logs
• Contractor touchpoints

Those are exactly the inputs that enable AI readiness forecasting and maintenance optimization. They’re also the inputs that create counterintelligence and technology-transfer risk if governance is weak.

A useful mental model is this: every modern aircraft program is a software and data program wearing an airframe as a costume.

Where AI changes the F-16 equation: readiness, ops, and planning

The key point: AI can significantly boost F-16 effectiveness—but that same AI layer increases both strategic value and strategic risk.

Even without changing the jet, AI changes outcomes by improving three areas: readiness, operations, and decision-making.

AI-enabled predictive maintenance (readiness)

F-16 fleets worldwide face the same blunt reality: readiness isn’t limited by pilot skill as often as it’s limited by parts availability, maintenance capacity, and reliability forecasting. AI-driven predictive maintenance can:

• Forecast component failures earlier
• Reduce “no fault found” troubleshooting cycles
• Improve spares positioning and depot scheduling
• Cut aircraft downtime through better prioritization

That’s a genuine capability gain. It also creates a question U.S. policymakers often avoid: If U.S.-supported sustainment improves Pakistan’s sortie generation, what behavior are we enabling—and against whom?

AI-assisted targeting and ISR fusion (operations)

Modern air operations rely on a fused picture: drones, radar, SIGINT, satellite imagery, and human reporting. AI helps filter, prioritize, and correlate.

In a volatile region, AI-enabled ISR fusion can:

• Flag anomalous movement near borders
• Prioritize time-sensitive targets
• Reduce analyst overload during crises
• Improve identification confidence when data is noisy

If U.S. policy aims to avoid escalation, increasing the speed and confidence of targeting decisions without parallel guardrails is risky.

AI-supported wargaming and crisis decision tools (strategy)

This is the most underused lever. AI doesn’t have to sit on the jet at all. It can sit in the headquarters.

AI-supported planning can:

• Generate and stress-test courses of action
• Model escalation pathways
• Identify logistics and basing bottlenecks
• Expose “unknown dependencies” in coalition or partner plans

If Washington wants influence without tying it to F-16 sustainment, decision-support cooperation is often safer than combat capability upgrades—but only if it’s paired with strict governance and clear objectives.

A better approach: decouple “relationship” from “combat capability”

The key point: if the U.S. wants a more favorable position vis-à-vis Pakistan, it should stop treating F-16 support as the primary currency.

Here’s what tends to work better in practice: separate engagement from enablement. Keep channels open, cooperate where interests overlap, but don’t assume that improving high-end air combat capability buys strategic alignment.

What to do instead (practical, policy-shaped options)

These options don’t require moral grandstanding. They require clarity.

1. Shift cooperation toward counterterror intelligence workflows, not airpower prestige

   • Build joint analytic standards and rapid deconfliction processes.
   • Focus on shared threats with measurable outputs (arrests, disrupted plots, reduced financing).

2. Offer AI readiness tools with narrow scopes and strong auditing

   • If AI maintenance support is provided, constrain it to safety and airworthiness outcomes.
   • Require auditability: who accessed what data, when, and why.

3. Use “data governance” as the new conditionality Conditionality used to be end-use monitoring of weapons. It now has to include:

   • Network segmentation requirements
   • Contractor vetting and access controls
   • Restrictions on cross-platform data fusion involving high-risk vendors

4. Invest in escalation management tools and crisis communication If Washington is serious about regional stability, it should treat crisis dynamics like an engineering problem:

   • Shared incident channels
   • Agreed playbooks for airspace incidents
   • Joint training on misidentification and ISR uncertainty

The stance I’ll take

Most companies and governments get this wrong: they negotiate platforms when they should negotiate systems.

The F-16 isn’t one system. It’s an ecosystem—maintenance data, mission planning, training, weapons integration, and software. If that ecosystem is operating inside a broader defense environment that increasingly depends on Chinese-origin components, Washington should assume higher technology exposure risk and lower behavioral leverage.

“People also ask” (and the answers decision-makers need)

Does cutting off F-16 support push Pakistan closer to China?

Pakistan is already closely tied to China in multiple domains. The relevant question is whether continued F-16 support buys the U.S. meaningful influence. If the influence is mostly symbolic, the U.S. is paying for the appearance of leverage.

Can AI reduce the escalation risk between nuclear-armed rivals?

Yes—if used for early warning, uncertainty visualization, and decision discipline. No—if used primarily to accelerate targeting cycles and compress decision time. AI can stabilize or destabilize depending on incentives and guardrails.

What’s the “hidden cost” in defense procurement today?

It’s not only the aircraft. It’s the lifetime data exposure, the contractor access footprint, and the opportunity cost of building dependency where you don’t control the surrounding digital infrastructure.

The modernization lesson for AI in defense

The key point: modernization programs succeed when they treat AI as governance-heavy infrastructure, not a feature you sprinkle on top.

If you’re working in defense modernization—government, prime contractor, or security tech—this case study points to a practical checklist:

• Define the leverage you want (behavioral outcomes, not “partnership”) before you fund capability.
• Map the data flows around sustainment and operations, including vendors and subcontractors.
• Design for auditability so you can prove compliance and spot anomalies.
• Segment networks by mission and vendor risk, even if it’s inconvenient.
• Measure success with operational metrics (readiness rates, incident response time, deconfliction outcomes), not press releases.

A defense relationship that can’t be expressed as controlled data flows isn’t a relationship—it’s a liability.

Where this goes next

F-16 sales to Pakistan are a case study in how legacy procurement logic collides with AI-era reality. If Washington keeps framing sustainment as a tool of leverage while ignoring the AI and data layer, it will keep buying the same outcomes at a higher price.

For leaders building AI in national security programs, this is the broader lesson: the most valuable defense capabilities in 2025 are the ones that turn data into decisions—and the most dangerous mistakes are the ones that treat data governance as an afterthought.

If you’re evaluating modernization partnerships, ask one hard question before the next package is approved: Are we funding a capability, or are we funding an ecosystem we can’t actually control?